In the Manmohan Singh cabinet there are few who can inspire the confidence of the country in these disquieting times. Post-Mumbai’s 26/11, politicians have become an insufferable lot, perhaps the equivalent of “sociopaths”. New York Times columnist Dick Cavett used this word to define the infamous Illinois governor, Rod Blagojevich, who intended to sell the seat just vacated by Barack Obama. Americans, Cavett says, wonder how such a specimen as Blagojevich ever got elected. The Americans can be forgiven for baulking at Blagojevich’s behaviour. They have not met Amar Singh and Raj Thackeray, nor the umpteen other raucous politicians who create a regular brouhaha in that solarium of Indian democracy — Parliament. Yet this gracious country continues to spawn and nurture such specimens.
Dr Willard Gaylin defines a sociopath as a person afflicted by a complex, hard-to-treat ailment. Cavett cites one example of the bizarre and extreme forms of the disease from Cleckley’s famous work on the subject, The Mask of Sanity. Cavett graphically details this. “A man who had been treated for sociopathy for a fairly long time and apparently successfully, was at long last released. His relatives were delighted at his apparent recovery, the resumption of good grooming, the return of his cheerful personality, and his entertaining and humourous discourse, polite manners and social affability. Some weeks into his recovered freedom — at his sister’s wedding — he politely made his way along a row of seated wedding guests to the aisle. There, he defecated!” The moral of the story is that sociopaths never really recover.
It warms the heart, therefore, that currently the Union home ministry is in the safe hands of P Chidambaram, even though he had earlier presided over the worst phase of the Indian economy after 1991. Chidambaram has kept an uncharacteristic cool despite the temperamental Sensex which took quite a toll on middle class investors. Chidambaram’s own colleagues in the Congress have alleged that he is more affected by the temperature of the sensex than the groans of the poor. Posterity will be the best judge of this man who captained India’s financial destiny for a considerable period with typical South Indian élan, complete with the veshti.
Having taken over as home minister, albeit unwillingly, by his own admission, Chidambaram seems to have come to grips with what ails the country’s security. State chief ministers have been asked to compulsorily attend a meeting in New Delhi on 6 January 2009 even if they have to reschedule earlier appointments. They have been told to set up 24x7 control rooms to receive and disseminate intelligence information on terrorism and other forms of organised crime, setting up an analysis group within the state intelligence wing, forwarding intelligence inputs to the IB and taking urgent steps to rid their states of the mafia, extortion gangs and land sharks. Here is a no-nonsense home minister giving his directive. But does he have the stamina it takes to rein in recalcitrant chief ministers?
Chidambaram has also sent out a strong message to Bangladesh and Myanmar that these two countries cannot continue to provide oxygen to insurgent outfits that have bled the North-eastern region of India for close to 60 years. This message has found its mark. Anup Chetia, alias Golap Barua, general secretary of the United Liberation Front of Asom, is running for cover. In a bizarre appeal to the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, Chetia proclaims he is no Indian citizen merely because he decides he is not one. If only changing citizenship was so easy wouldn’t we have all joined the US country club for its promise of that elusive pie in the sky? Chetia knows what lies in store for him if India acts tough. His piteous moan that Indian Army operations resulted in the death of many of his colleagues is worth spitting at. What about the thousands of people, including development worker Sanjoy Ghosh, whom the Ulfa has systematically exterminated? Or were they not human beings? The UN would be unjust to give a hearing to Chetia’s mercy petition. And India should dig in its heels on this!
Manipur is the next port of call. The situation in that state is anarchic. Where else would insurgents have a free run of the land and casually throw grenades at Raj Bhavan, cocking a snoot at the heavily reinforced security forces? Each time a grenade is thrown or a bomb planted, chief minister Ibobi Singh gets the temporary jitters. A committee is promptly set up to kill the controversy arising out of the militants’ audacious show of strength. After that it is back to business until the next death or rape or bomb blast shatters the peace. Surely people deserve better governance than this! Thus far people have had a sinister feeling that Delhi is least interested in addressing the problems of this nowhere land.
The free flow of arms and ammunition from China via Myanmar and Bangladesh is not news to the home ministry. That people by the hundreds have lost their lives in this frontier as a result of grenades and bomb attacks, gunshots, etc, and that the Centre has not even batted an eyelid is now part of our collective memory. So why is the country suddenly so gung-ho about getting tough on Bangladesh/Myanmar only now? Is it because the Mumbai terror is linked to the Islamic jihad of which Bangladesh is a cradle? In the North-east we are quite used to living with terror, not knowing when a bomb would blow us to smithereens. We have not cursed or used choice expletives at our politicians nor have we indulged in the kind of haranguing indulged in by India’s bold and beautiful crowd.
Perhaps it is this rare equanimity, the cool sang-froid that comes from knowing that you have to live by your wits and thereby develop the reflexes for self-protection, which has helped keep our sanity. Once in a while the sanity is disrupted by an emotionally surcharged scurrilous display of naked bodies by women protesters. Sure, this outburst, like a strong swig of hard liquor, did arouse all kinds of responses. It made instant news. That was so important for a people who are never in the frame for the right reasons. Sadly, that too is now a forgotten saga. It is difficult to imagine as to what else the women would do next if their dignity and honour is violated yet again!
For the North-east, therefore, a tough-talking home minister who will not tolerate further prevarications from chief ministers nor the shenanigans of militants groups who have now turned mafia, extortionists, cold blooded murderers and land sharks all in one, is a welcome respite. We deserve better than what was dealt out in the past and, as Shakespeare says, “Hope springs eternal in the human breast”. There is nothing wrong in hoping and waiting while Chidambaram sends our politicians for treatment of their socio-pathological disorders.
(The author is a Shillong-based columnist and activist, and can be contacted at patricia17@rediffmail.com.)